


Seeing red

by theleftboobgrabber



Series: Tumblr fics [3]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Badass Magnus Bane, First Date Gone Wrong, Fluff and Angst, M/M, One Shot, Protective Alec Lightwood, all the fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 17:52:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6867262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleftboobgrabber/pseuds/theleftboobgrabber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is nothing that screams first date as much as an untimely Circle members attack.<br/>(Seraph blade + Magnus anyone?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeing red

“This isn’t what I had in mind when you asked me _ON A DATE_!!” Magnus shouts the last words, not to be dramatic, but to make sure Alexander hears him over the second explosion. The first one came from the kitchen area of the restaurant they’re in, blowing off a wall on what must have been half dozen of mundanes.

The only answer he gets is Alec flipping their table on the side and forcing Magnus down with him. A mere second later, four arrows hit the tabletop in quick succession, heads lodging themselves on the wood viciously. Praise Raziel for Alec’s quick thinking and reflexes.

“Circles members!” Alec says, looking pissed. “Tell me you can portal out of here?”

Magnus looks at him in confusion.

“I’m not leaving you behind!” he hisses back. “There are at least four of them. You don’t even have your gear on…”

As he speaks, Alec’s bow and quiver materialize across the shadowhunter’s back and a -dear god, is that a thigh holster? This shouldn’t be as sexy at this is, especially not in this situation. But at least Alec seems to be armed to the teeth… at their date? Magnus is mildly offended. Obviously Alec didn’t bring this against _him,_ but come on… is he a boy scout or something?

“I’m a shadowhunter and a Lightwood, they might hurt me but they’ll just bring me to Valentine for questioning. They will kill you on the spot! Make that portal,” Alexander orders. Magnus could swear he hears some begging in his tone. He coughs violently, smoke stinging his throat and eyes and nods.

He swallows with difficulty but snaps his fingers, fully prepare to forcefully push 6’3” of perfectly stubborn (and _chevaleresque_ ) shadowhunter in his portal along with him. Problem is, Magnus can’t. Make the portal that is. Alec might be a hunk of a man but Magnus isn’t some weakling either, he could manhandle Alec if he wanted to.

Snapping his fingers for the second and third times doesn’t do shit and Magnus gives up after the fourth, bile rising in his throat. He can _feel_ his magic, swirling inside of him, hungry for a good and healthy lash out but he can’t access it. He’s cut off from it.

Alexander seems to realize the implications at the same time Magnus does if his expression is anything to go by. He looks scared for the first time, his beautiful face drained from color and lips pinched in a tight angry line.

“You stay down… I’ll take care of them,” Alec assures and Magnus can see that he tries his hardest not to freak out, not to show his concern. He quickly unsheathe a knife from his combat boot and gives it to Magnus with a meaningful look. “Call Izzy!” he shouts before jumping above the table without a glance behind.

Magnus does as he is told but the reception must be jammed like his magic somehow is… shit. If Valentine has access to whatever spell/artifact his goons are using… if he survives this, Magnus is going to have a long and painful talk with Tessa in the Spiral Labyrinth. He pockets back his phone and rolls his eyes at the mess he is in.

Somehow, it’s not the worst first date he ever had in his 300 years. It’s not as reassuring as it should be.

Now, Alexander is really cute. And caring. But Magnus is not a fair maiden that never saw a drop of blood outside of her undergarment. And it seems that Alec forgot that, 18 years ago, Magnus was in the front lines, fighting _against_ the Circle like the big boy he is. Or perhaps he does remember and is trying to protect him from the horror of fighting them again.

Which is adorable. And thoughtful. Magnus will definitely blow him as a thank you note. If they both get out of here alive.

 

*****

Alec apparently took out the enemy archer without too much trouble, which left the others minions camping around the restaurant -three left if Magnus original count was exact.

Mundanes are in panic, crying and shushing each others while hiding under tables and holding cutlery has makeshift weapons. Some are banging on the doors but the circles members don’t stop them, probably because they sealed the exits with runes before going in. How terrifying this must be for the mundanes, incapable to see what’s truly happening around them, just screaming and smoke around them.

This isn’t good.

Magnus spots a blond circle member, easily identifiable with his glowing seraph blade out, coming out of the kitchen area, stepping carelessly over bodies. Magnus plays dead on the ground and the man passes him without a second glance.

Now, time to see if Magnus still got it.

He jumps on his feet and tackles the blond man to the ground, knocking his head on the floor with an audible crack but all those runes are there for a reason and the man barely blinks at the shock. He shakes Magnus off his back with ease and raises his arms to plant his blazing seraph blade in Magnus’ chest in a swift movement……

It’s more of a reflex than a conscious thought. For a second, Magnus is contemplating his death and suddenly the knife Alec gave him is planted in the Circle member’s neck, right in the middle of his rune.

Oh, the irony in that. Magnus would laugh if he wasn’t that winded by fear and the smoke in the air. He forces the knife down to him, ripping the man’s throat open.

The bastard gasps disgustingly, spraying Magnus with blood and sags on him, the light of his seraph blade going out as he dies.

Magnus push the body away from him and his eyes catch the ones of a little girl who’s hiding under a table. She can’t be older than Alec’s little brother, the one Magnus never met but saw countless pictures of on the older Lightwoods’ phones.

Magnus tries to smile at her but she screams and crawls away.

 _Oh no_ , Magnus thinks. _My eye glamour. It must have dropped when I was cut off from my magic. Bastards._

Magnus gets back up, crouching behind a table and eyes anxiously the seraph blade his opponent tried to use against him. The knife is on the short side, obviously the only thing Alec could spare from his arsenal (did he really think that Magnus would stay put?) and Magnus would have a greater chance of survival if he took the blade but…

But then Alexander would _see_.

With a shaky hand, Magnus takes the seraph blade from the ground. It’s warm, as all angelic weapon are, either responding to his touch already or it hasn’t finished cooling down from its previous owner. He sticks the knife under his belt for easy access.and...

“Don’t even try, _warlock._ You would be righteously burnt back to hell if you tried to play with a nephilim blade. You’re not worthy.” The words are spoken with as much hatred Magnus expects from a shadowhunter.

He slowly turns his head toward the voice and shit. Magnus knows that man. He works at the London institute. Or worked, the Circle rune on his neck being proof enough of his new allegiance.

Farther behind the traitor, Magnus sees Alexander for the first time since he left him. He is struggling with an other circle member. Unfortunately, it’s obvious that he matches Alec both in physic and skills. If only Magnus could access his magic, damn it.

Sending a quick but honest prayer to Raziel for Alexander’s sake, Magnus concentrates on the seraph blade in his hand, willing the blade to come to life. The restaurant is immediately flooded with a dark red light. He doesn’t look down, not willing to see the proof of his heritage. Of his shame. The scorching heat the damn thing is emitting burns his palm nearly enough to make him drop it in pain.

Instead Magnus tighten his fist on the hilt.

His opponent’s face distorts in surprise.

“What?” He looks from Magnus to the blade in panic. “What are you?”

Magnus gives him credits for standing his ground without soiling himself.

“I’m a son of hell, asshole.”

 

*****

Magnus slashes and jabs in quick succession but the shadowhunter blocks him and drops to the ground, sweeping Magnus feet from under him. Magnus barely has the time to roll away before the man stabs the ground where he was sprawled on a second before. They both get back to their feet and attack at the same time, blades meeting in a shock of sparks.

The impact rattles Magnus’ arm through the bones and he grunts at the effort of maintaining his pressure against the shadowhunter’s sword. He doesn’t have the muscle mass his opponent has, nor the experience. And the runes.

How many innocent warlocks and other downworlders got run through by seraph blades along the years because of the advantage of those runes? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands?

Magnus feels himself weakening. They are so close in this position that he can feel the heat of both blades against the skin of his face, lights so blinding his eyes tear up. The shadowhunter viciously smiles at him and spits on his face before forcing his blade down and kicking Magnus powerfully in the guts.

Magnus crashes on a table that collapses under him. The pain in his belly is nothing compared to the fury Magnus feels rising inside of him. He gets up and wipes his face off his sleeve, spitting blood on the floor.

No one spit on him and live to tell the tale. No one.

He takes the knife from his belt and advances on the shadowhunter once more, widely stabbing at his exposed belly. The man laughs and catches Magnus by the wrist, twisting it. Magnus feels his bones cracks and _screams_ , hitting the nephilim squarely on the face with the flat on his seraph blade while the bastard is distracted by his small victory.

His scream is music to Magnus’ ears, the flesh of his face sizzling at the burn.

Seraph blades run hot with heavenly fire. But Magnus has more angelic blood in his body than the entire Clave put together. Tainted blood, perhaps; put through the unholy fire of Hell, definitively. And passed down to him from his father. The blood of a fallen angel. A _prince of Hell_ like he gloated about the one and only time Magnus summoned him.

The man falls to his knees, dropping Magnus’ wrist and his seraph blade, stupidly trying to get Magnus' sword away from him with his hands. The skin of his palms sticks to the red glowing blade before burning completely, leaving the disgusting smell of burnt flesh behind. He screams again.

Magnus’ wrist hurts like hell and he cradles it close to is chest before punching the bastard in the face with the pommel of the blazing sword, breaking his nose.

It’s without remorse that he plunges the blade in the man’s throat.

 

*****

It’s eerie silent in the restaurant after that.

Magnus looks around just in time to see Alec on the other side of the room, deeply stabbing the last Circle member in the eye with one of his arrow. His boyfriend grunts and rolls away from the body, gets to his feet and scans the restaurant for threats. His covered in blood, seraph blade glowing pure white in his hand.

Every bit of what an avenging angel should be.

It would be better if he wasn’t frowning at the red seraph blade in Magnus’ hand like it’s going to attack him. Magnus can’t move, can’t even drop the blade like he should, trapped by Alec’s gaze. He agonizes a hundred times during the handful of minutes it takes Alec to break the front door of the restaurant open and the screaming mundanes to finally flee.

It’s only them now, surrounded by flipped tables, burns marks and dead bodies, air filled with smoke. And still Alec’s eyes are on the seraph blade as he cautiously approaching Magnus. He’s limping a little, left pant leg torn and bloody.

“How does…” he begins then immediately stops himself. He drops his own blade, leaving it to clatter on the floor to runs the rest of the distance and slowly take Magnus’ injured wrists in his hand. “Oh my god! Shit… you think I can use an _iratze_ on you if you don’t have your magic?” he asks, earnest and painfully caring.

“I…” Magnus forces the tightness in his throat down. “I wouldn’t risk it. I can still fill it. My magic I mean… whatever they used is still up and running though. I’ll heal myself later.”

Alec bites his bottom lip and nods. “You’re probably right. Should have guessed as much with your eyes.”

“My…”

Magnus can’t help his gut reaction. He snatches his injured arm from Alec’s gentles hands and turns around, closing his eyes so hard it hurt. He forgot about the glamour. _Damn it damn it._

“Magnus?”

“Just… give me a moment.” This isn’t how he wanted to show that side of him to Alec. Hell, if he could have get away with it, Magnus would have hide his demon mark from the young nephilim as long as he could.

“You don’t have to hide from me, Magnus.”

Shit. Alexander must have moved around Magnus without making a noise because his voice his right in front of him, soft as a whisper but strong. Convincing.

He wants to believe Alec, he really does. But decades after decades of resentment and hurt doesn’t go away that easily. Magnus takes a deep, long breath and opens his eyes, part of him feeling foolish for thrusting someone, anyone.

Alexander looks at him with a tiny smile and cups his cheek.

“Why do you glamour them at all? They’re beautiful,” he says easily.

“Not that much people are comfortable with them.”

“They’re idiot then. If I deserve more than hiding my true self away then so do you.”

Magnus can’t help but chuckles at the stubborn set of Alec eyebrows and mouth, like he’s daring Magnus to contradict him.

“I can… work my way toward it, I guess.” He surrenders after holding Alec’s stare as long as he can. Perhaps he can begin by not glamouring his eyes around Alexander? That’s enough of a challenge to begin with.

“Good.” Alec comes closer and quickly kisses him on the forehead. Magnus eyes flutter at the simple touch, at the weight it carries. Breathing easier, Magnus smiles at Alec.

“You want me to take the sword?” Alec asks, softly putting his hand over the one Magnus holds the seraph blade with.

Magnus tenses right back, fist tightening nervously around the hilt.

“I don’t… yes,” he works out of his tightened throat, voice rough.

“Okay.”

Alec is gentle with him. He holds Magnus wrist while he works the sword out of his stiff fingers, carefully avoiding the scorching blade. When it’s over, when the blade leaves Magnus’ hand completely and passes to Alec, the light dims considerably and turns white.

“I can…” Magnus begins.

“Hey. You’ll tell me when you’re ready okay? You don’t owe me shit.” Alec looks at him directly in the eyes again, like he’s making sure Magnus understand that he’s serious. “Now we better go before the cops show up.”

“We need to find what they used to jam my magic first.”

They make quick work of searching the bodies and sure enough, the archer Alec killed first has some kind of weird spiked orb the bottom of his quiver. It glows a sickly green light before Alec crushes it under his boot

Suddenly Magnus’ magic cracks under his skin, little sparks jumping from finger to finger. He makes a quick job of healing his broken wrist and crouches down to pocket the remaining pieces of the artifact. Studying this is now his priority.

He makes a portal and they both leave the place as soon as they can, but not before Magnus catches the guilty look Alec cast around the room.

 

*****

It’s only when Alec sits down on his couch that Magnus realizes that they didn’t consult each other about the destination. For all he knows, Alec could have wanted to go back to the institute to report to his parents. To get as far away from Magnus as possible. He could have and the warlock wouldn’t have been able to stop him.

But here he is, in Magnus’s loft.

Alec gets his stele out and burns a _iratze_ on his exposed leg with a practiced hand gesture. He sighs in relief and carelessly throw the stele on the coffee table.

“You should call your sister. They were jamming the phone back at the restaurant.”

“I will… I just…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, just scrubs his face with his hands (he only adds to the blood and grime on his face, though) and rests his head on the back of the sofa, eyes on the ceiling. He looks like a puppet without strings for a moment. Magnus doesn’t like it on bit. He turns toward the bar and serves himself a mojito.

“So that was some first date,” Magnus says dejectedly.

“Just our luck, really… you think the next one could involve less fighting? And more kissing? I had a plan you know.” Alec confesses with a nervous giggle.

What.

“You want to go out again?” Magnus voices cracks and he coughs again, the sound of it really loud in the calm of the loft. He’ll need to heal himself more thoughtfully, the smoke he breathed obviously made an impression on his lungs.

Alec doesn’t move his head but fixes his eyes on him, frowning.

“You don’t? I mean it’s okay if you don’t but…” He looks so sad that Magnus goes to him, sits down, nests himself against Alec’s side. Alec's arm goes around Magnus’ shoulders immediately, pressing him closer.

“I do, dumbass. It’s just... I’m surprised this disaster didn’t make you run for the hills.”

Alec nuzzles his hair and Magnus doesn’t stop the tiny noise of content he makes in response. He feels like sleeping for the next decade.

“It’s going to take a lot more than Circle,” he yawns soundly, “ members to make me stop dating you.”

“Good to know,” Magnus says in a breath.

They’re both asleep before Alec can say anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> I'm theleftboobgrabber on tumblr, let's be buddies!
> 
> If you loved it, kudos and comments are ALWAYS a good way to show it, or consider buying me a [coffee](http://ko-fi.com/theleftboobgrabber/)!


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